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A few hours back, I was on a high! I was delighted on hearing the news of Vishwanathan Anand's win over Veselin Topalov in the World Chess Championship. I wasn't expecting him to win with the black. In fact, I was hoping for a draw so that the Tie Breakers could come in... where Vishy would have had an advantage as he is one of the best players in the world at rapid chess. Considering that I have been a big Vishy fan since my school days, I was truly elated.
I was helped by the fact that when I heard this news, India was batting beautifully... with Gambhir and Raina looking good. Then, Gambhir fell. Dhoni walked in. I was expecting him to promote himself, even though I didn't want him to do so. It felt ominous...
Soon, my high started wearing off. Dhoni wasted the opportunity of batting on a flat track by struggling to an unbeaten 19-ball 23. India limped on to a disappointing 163 in their 20 overs. I was low by then. Soon, Jayawardene, the form batsman of the tournament, clipped the first ball he faced beautifully for a four. The mood went from low to lower.
Then Nehra got Mahela to edge one and Yusuf held on. Next over, the debutant Vinay Kumar got the veteran Sanath Jaisuriya to play one into the hands of Dinesh Karthik at square leg. Sri Lanka two down in 2 overs. The high had returned. The fact that Dilshan was out of nick helped that feeling.
Soon Dilshan found the middle of the bat as well as the boundaries consistently. No wickets fell. Harbhajan, India's most economical bowler, was thrashed in his opening over. Low again.
Dilshan got out. A flicker of hope. Then Sangakkara went on a rampage. Hit a few quick sixes. Hope diminished. Sangakkara bowled by the young debutant. Another flicker of hope. Angelo Mathews takes over. Piyush Chawla thrashed in the 18th over. Hopes gone!
I was confident that Sri Lanka will not be winning the game... but they will certainly knock India out. When, Suresh Raina's leap in the air still ended a couple of inches short of the ball which sailed over for a six, it was confirmed. INDIA ELIMINATED FROM WORLD TWENTY20 2010 was the message that flashed! What a shame!
And then Sri Lanka did something that I was confident they wouldn't manage to do. They pulled off a win... Kapugedara pulled off a Javed Miandad. He hit a last ball six when 3 were required to win. An exciting finish... especially for the Sri Lankan fans. The West Indians looked crestfallen after the six. Their task has become near impossible now.
I will be back tomorrow after some sleep to continue with my Dhoni-bashing. Till then, congratulations to Sri Lanka! And of course, Vishy Anand!
History repeats itself. Boys have emulated the men. Seven months ago, the senior Team India lost out in the second round of a tournament in which they were the defending champions. Now, it’s the turn of the junior Team India. In both the cases, expectations were high. In both the cases, the team stumbled through the first round with the help of a couple of victories over minnows.
Am I being too hard on the boys? Yeah, I think so. The expectations from them were generated on the basis of the performance of a completely different unit. Virat Kohli’s men (o sorry, I meant boys) had gone the distance and won a Cricket U-19 World Cup Tournament in 2007. Ashok Menaria’s boys, a different set of lads with big dreams and glorious ambitions, could not match them.
Yet, I have a feeling that Ashok Menaria will not be as disappointed about losing in the Quarter Finals as he will be about having lost to Pakistan. Almost 14 years ago, these two countries were involved in another Quarter Final at Bangalore. That turned out to be an epic contest producing come never-to-be-forgotten moments. This one was no less than an epic contest either.
Pakistan went on to win by 2 wickets with 3 balls to spare after the situation looked a little bleak for them. This is not the first Pakistan team to have done that (remember Javed Miandad’s six). The coach of India’s U-19 team, Chandrakant Pandit remarked, “We are shattered. I feel as low as the team felt when Javed Miandad hit THAT six in Sharjah off the last ball. We didn’t speak to each other for nearly two hours after that and here too we were just trying to gather ourselves. Yes, cricket is a tough hard game, but it is played by human beings and human beings have emotions. At this age, the boys can get very upset. Its two hours after the game and I can see some boys are still crying.”
I feel sorry for the boys who lost out to Pakistan. Their match acquired that extra edge and bite due to no fault of theirs. It wasn’t their fault that 26/11 happened. Nor was it their fault that no IPL franchisee decided to pick a Pakistani player at the third player auction (for reasons I’d rather not comment on right now). And now, after this shattering loss, I hope the boys recover as soon as possible. They have a bright future ahead of them and they cannot allow one loss to change it all. The coach, Chandrakant Pandit, a man who knows what shattering losses are like, needs to ensure that boys regroup to perform well again in the remaining matches of the tournament (the 5th to 8th place deciders).
Not even 48 hours have passed since the game ended, and voices from across the border are calling this win a fitting reply to the IPL snub received by the Pakistani players. Rameez Raja describes, “It (the win) comes at a time when this IPL incident has taken place and when our senior team is struggling in Australia.” Former Test player Basit Ali goes one step further, “No matter what he (Lalit Modi) does, he should know the base of Pakistan cricket is very strong and we will keep on producing winners.”
The boys don’t need all this. And here, I mean both sets of boys – Indians as well as Pakistanis. The Pakistan team needs to realise that there is a tournament to be won and that this game was not a be all and end all for them. The Indian team, on the other hand, will be on a self – depreciatory mode thinking that they have let the country down with this loss. No, the boys certainly do not need all this. But this is where they will become men. Or at least some of them will.
Adversity brings out the best in some, the worst in rest. Like Ian Chapell says, you tend to learn more when you lose rather than when you win. The Indian boys have had a big lesson. And we look forward to them learning and coming out better. These boys are the future of Indian cricket. But the future needs to come to terms with the present first.
